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Bangladesh death sentence sparks protests

Tahmina AnsariUpdated
Fri May 10 13:29:00 EST 2013

Bangladesh is experiencing massive street protests over a death sentence handed to an Islamist party leader and an increasingly violent debate about a proposed new blasphemy law. There are now claims that hundreds of people have been killed in a government crackdown on the growing protests.

Transcript

EMILY BOURKE: Pressure is growing on the government in Bangladesh after another deadly accident at a clothing factory.

Eight people were killed in the latest factory fire and the death toll from the collapse of a multi-storey clothing factory earlier this month has now exceeded 1,000.

While industrial accidents are dominating the news out of Bangladesh, what's less widely reported is the government's deadly crackdown on growing protests.

Bangladesh is seeing a massive street demonstration movement over the death sentence handed to an Islamist party leader and an increasingly violent debate about a proposed new blasphemy law.

And as Tahmina Ansari reports there are claims that hundreds of people have been killed in a government crackdown on protests.

TAHMINA ANSARI: Prime minister Shiekh Hasina's government is already facing several challenges and overnight he was handed a new one.

A Bangladesh tribunal has convicted and sentenced an Islamist party leader to death for atrocities committed in the country's war of independence in 1971.

Party supporters and activists staged violent protests against the verdict in cities across the country -police have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them.

Islamists have also been trying to pressure the government into introducing a new blasphemy law, and calling for the execution of bloggers whom they accuse of having insulted the Prophet Mohammed.

The World Today spoke to a Bangladeshi man who lives in Australia, but travelled to Dhaka recently and witnessed the protests first hand.

He is reluctant to reveal his identity.

BANGLADESHI MAN: The reason I'm saying please pull off my name, because there's no democracy at the moment. First thing, 100 persons confirmed. So if we go through the usual process I will probably be taken tomorrow to the jail and my family would be in trouble, so why would I do that to my family? Definitely I don't want to create trouble, and definitely, definitely there is no democracy.

TAHMINA ANSARI: Police and medical sources say 38 people have been killed since last weekend, when police first confronted tens of thousands of Islamists who'd blockaded the capital.

A lecturer at the American International University in Bangladesh, who also wanted his identity concealed, believes the death toll is much higher.

BANGLADESHI LECTURER: We visited some of the hospitals and ourselves actually found more bodies than anything the government gave and most of the hospitals and hundreds and hundreds of people injured with back injuries, with shotgun shots.

TAHMINA ANSARI: He says the most recent protests have been the deadliest.

BANGLADESHI LECTURER: Electricity was turned off in that area and crackdowns begin two o'clock, approximately two in the morning and continued until six in the morning. The entire area was literally like a battle zone, you could hear gun fire from a distance even. They used steal coded bullets, live ammunition, tear gas, rubber bullets, shot guns. What happened was like literally the destruction of the area. The government blamed the activists for doing the destruction and they said we had no choice but to crack down on them.

TAHMINA ANSARI: The Bangladeshi Australian man says as the violence escalates, the people are rapidly losing faith in the police to protect and control the situation.

BANGLADESHI MAN: Police is no more like defending, police is going for action. They are shooting, they are openly firing.

At 4:24 am in the morning, police have taken off a few TV channels, they shut down TV channels and in fact when they cracked down during the night, they didn't let the TV channels or media people cover it and then what we're hearing now as a matter of fact, there are around 2,000 people who lost their lives and what happens with their bodies? The police were marching, they were walking in, they were killing people and all the dead bodies were immediately taken into the trucks and taken back to the headquarters.

TAHMINA ANSARI: The lecturer believes the situation in Bangladesh is in danger of spiralling out of control.

BANGLADESHI LECTURER: The killing of demonstrators who have a democratic right to protest has become another major issue, because this sort of police heavy-handed tactics is unprecedented in Bangladesh, and the injuries and the number of deaths, it has just like shocked people that police would use that sort of massive force toward opposition members. So that itself becomes another ground for continuous movement against the government.

EMILY BOURKE: That's a lecturer at the American International University in Bangladesh who requested his identity be concealed.